Over the past twelve months or so my body has seen more medjool dates and goji berries than you can shake a stick (of celery) at. Processed foods and convenience meals have made way for a new wave of quinoa loving, nutri bullet enthusiasts and I'm proud to say I'm one of them.

I've managed to maintain, for the most part, a refined sugar free lifestyle. I say for the most part because, well, Prosecco and also I've literally just had a bag of McCoys. I have the odd slip up here and there but 90% of the time I am cous cousing myself to a healthier happier me.

In the same way an AA member (not of the motoring variety) might announce their 'dry' time, I'd like to announce that I haven't had a Kit Kat for months. You could say I've had a break, from Kit Kats.

"When I first moved to New York and I was totally broke, sometimes I bought Vogue instead of dinner. I just felt it fed me more." Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

There's something about Vogue that's good for your soul. Putting yourself in a room with 101 issues of Vogue and 280 images from the Vogue archive, is even better for you.

Previously held at the National Portrait Gallery, the Manchester Art Gallery is now host to the Vogue 100: A Century Of Style Exhibition, celebrating 100 years of one of the most influential fashion magazines in the world.

If you needed me last Friday you'd have found me en-route to Manchester. Solo day tripping, I was happy and hell bent on spending precious time staring at stylish images of beautiful people. Ahhhhh Vogue.

I'm all for a cosy night in, so when Chicago Town offered me
the chance to try some of their new pizza flavours I replied with a yes and quickly
summoned some friends… “Pizza provided,
bring own pyjamas”

I'm Lancashire born and bred and can often be found complaining that there's never anything to do in this town. (I know we're a city now, since 2002...it just still hasn't fully registered yet).

When I saw by chance on Twitter that a Lancashire Fringe Festival was launching and taking place at the Ham & Jam Coffee Shop on Lancaster Road, Preston last weekend, I was keen to go in the interests of finding things to do locally, but also a bit dubious.
Advertised as a 'free comedy, performance and art event' I had my reservations. I had fears it would be 'arty farty', awkward and too far along the alternative spectrum for me to sit comfortably through. I had visions of slipping out of a side door at the earliest opportunity. How wrong I was.

If it wasn't for the lure of tapas and an alcohol licence, I may have missed out on what was genuinely one of the best nights in Preston I've had for a long while.

A hen party is a big affair. You can forget the days of a solitary night on the town before you wave goodbye to your maiden name in the hope you've picked a gooden. These days you'll need 48 hours, a passport and a pack of rennies...and rightly so. Brides to be are going large and taking their friends down to.

If you land the task of planning a hen party "many different kinds of entertainment are selected, depending on what the organisers think will best please their guest of honour" ...ta Wikipedia.

Despite the aforementioned "many different kinds of entertainment" there are certain things that will always happen when you take a large group of excitable females, put them on a plane and ply them with Prosecco.

Hello from the tail end of a weekend in Amsterdam celebrating the hen party of one of my oldest friends from school.

It was a weekend that saw...amongst other things...fourteen hens and one bride to be cackling our way round the city on a Prosecco bike, embracing the local culture and getting lost for the best part of three hours, casually waking three hens from a Prosecco fuelled kip at the dinner table and one unfortunate hen settling down for the night on the bathroom floor.

I'm writing this still on a high after spending the most amazing night at Manchester's Hotel Gotham. (If you want, for effect, feel free to picture me hunched over a type writer in a smoke filled room. I'm not, but it's more fun that way)

I've walked down King Street many times before, so how I've never noticed the hotel impressively jutting into the sky is beyond me. Formerly home to The Midland Bank, the listed building is now a stylishly opulent city centre sanctuary, based on the fictional city of Gotham.

When we made our reservation online, something about the optional 'Butler Martini Service' told me I was going to love this place. I packed something nice to wear, asked my boyfriend if I could call him Bruce Wayne and checked in.

It might have rained all the live long day on Tuesday, but the wet weather didn't dampen my spirits. Armed with maps, city guides, cliché travel themed notebooks and a bottle of Prosecco, my boyfriend and I spread out across the living room floor for an evening of holiday planning.

In a free spirit wave of 'why the hell not' we'd already booked flights to Milan and flights home, nine nights later from Bologna.

I say free spirit wave because I haven't actually booked the annual leave yet. In the vain of "you become what you think"... I think I'm going to Italy for nine nights this August so let's wait and see.